It’s been announced that the Buckeyes will be going to the Gator Bowl on Jan 2 to play Florida. If you’re wanting to make a trip to the bowl game, here’s a LOCAL travel agent that can arrange a Bowl Package for you:
Allons Travel, Mary Stephan
www.allonstravel.com
614-562-3157
Twitter: @AllonsTravel
The photo above was a tweet-up to cheer on Rt 315 traffic. Mary is on the right.
SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES!
Posted in Central Ohio, OSU Buckeyes, Transportation
Tagged Gator Bowl, OSU Buckeyes, travel agent
Do you have a bucket list? Is a bucket list different from life goals or is it just a new name for the same thing? I had goals or “things” I wanted to do or experience. A couple of my goals bordered on obsession if you were to ask those close to me, but I managed to achieve both of them. There are quite a few other things I’ve been able to do throughout the years so I’ve checked off many of the things that otherwise would qualify for a bucket list.
Since I’m not into heights, stuff like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, is NOT on my list. I’ll leave that to the first President Bush. While I think taking a hot air balloon ride must be great fun, it’s not on my list – due to the height thingy - but I’m intrigued by it. I took a helicopter ride once so that will have to do. If you have a chance for a helicopter ride, do it! It was fun looking at the ground thru the glass bubble.
When I was a girl and people would ask what I wanted “to be”, I told them I wanted to race cars. That wasn’t a career option for girls then, so I live vicariously through Danika Patrick now. That also probably explains the number of times I was stopped by cops during the 10 years I owned sports cars. If I had a chance to run a fast car on a race track, I most certainly would do that and put a √ next to that bucket list item.
In the next month, I “may” check off another item. I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle. Some friends have had Goldwings for years, and will soon be moving out-of-state. I bravely said they must take me for a ride before the bike gets loaded on the moving truck. If that comes to be, I’ll let you know how it goes and whether I can add “Biker Mama” to my resumé. 
Posted in Central Ohio, Commentary, Transportation
Tagged bucket list, helicopter, motorcycle, racing, sports car
Like other states, Ohio has a budget problem that our new Republican Governor is trying to fix. Discussions are taking place on revenue options for schools to prevent taxes from being raised to solve the budget problem. It’s been suggested that schools be allowed to sell ad space on the school buses.
If this occurs, I just know that Realtors® will be the first to buy ad space for the visibility throughout neighborhood homes. They’re the same agents who paste their face on park benches and grocery carts.
A twitter person questioned why schools didn’t just purchase smaller buses, since we seldom see a bus full of kids except for teams and bands. That started me to wonder why the design of school buses hasn’t changed for eons. Even though our cars have changed drastically and become much safer, school buses still look essentially the same as when I was a kid.
They’re high-profile, not aerodynamic, and still use the hard brown seats without seatbelts. I don’t understand why they need to be so high unless it’s to allow people to stand up inside.
I wonder if buses could be downsized to a Hummer-like long vehicle like a limo? Since many schools pick up elementary kids separate from the highschool kids, they’re carrying fewer students each trip out. Maybe two of the Hummer-type buses could replace one typical bus at less cost with greater safety built-in. How important is it to stand up in the bus vs the potential cost savings?
Does anyone know whether there have been any challenges to the typical school bus design? Is there a perfectly good reason for the design to stay the same? Or has no one asked the question as to why this sacred cow remains unchanged?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Everybody is grumbling about gas prices being near or over $4 a gallon. Over the weekend, I proposed on Twitter that we should try to think positive and consider that a cup of gas costs less than a cup of Starbucks. Yes, I know we don’t buy gallons of Starbucks at a time, so we don’t notice the expense as much.
I thought it would be fun to consider what we might pay for other common liquids that we buy … if we were to buy them in large quantities like filling our gas tanks. The WEENR-mobile has a 20.2 gallon tank per my instruction book. Here’s what I would pay to fill my gas tank if I used other common products (as per Giant Eagle prices).
Do you feel a little better now about that $4/gal price?
Copyright © 2011. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.
Road signs near Home Rd RR construction
The signs of summer are with us. Some of us who live in Delaware County are dealing with road improvements, and while they can slow our journey now, hopefully, the projects will make life easier in the future.
A project that we’re going to have to live with for awhile is the building of an overpass over the Home Rd railroad tracks just north of Powell. Anyone who has been late to work or a meeting waiting for a train to pass will be thankful when this project is complete. According to the Delaware County Engineer’s web site, the project won’t be completed until 2011.
Before construction can begin on the RR overpass, they had to re-route traffic onto a temporary side road that “snakes” its way between Liberty Rd and Sawmill Pkwy. The signs in this photo help redirect traffic onto the temporary road from the road next to the Chase Bank at the corner of Sawmill Pkwy. Yes, it can be confusing the first time through!!!!
East of this area, Liberty Rd is being re-aligned to join the north & south sections of this road. When complete, there will be a stoplight at Home Rd, which will be a welcome addition. It was becoming increasingly difficult to turn onto Home Rd from Liberty Rd without taking some risk. This project is to be complete by the end of 2010. If you go to this link, you can see a map of how the road is to be realigned.
If you want to avoid this area entirely and want to go north-south between Powell & Delaware city, your options are to take Rt 315 (Olentangy River Rd) or Sawmill Pkwy all the way to Hyatts Rd, then east to Liberty Rd. If you need to go east-west, your options are to take Hyatts Rd then south on Section Line Rd or Powell Rd through downtown Powell (allow extra time for this option).
If you live in another part of Delaware County, the Engineer’s Office has a list of all projects on their website. It’s pretty helpful.
Best advice is to stay cool … control the road rage … keep your eyes open … and don’t drive on the wrong part of the road as I did the first time through!
Copyright © 2010. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.
Click image to read all the articles about my personal saga with the Emerald Ash Borer damage to my tree.
Another idiotic idea from a politician
Fortunately, Twitter provides information on what’s REALLY going on since the mainstream media is too focused on what Hollywood is doing. Here’s a story that you won’t see on the evening news until it’s too late.
Nebraska Congressman proposing a bill to permit robo calls to cellphones
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb) is sponsoring a bill that would loosen restrictions on telemarketing calls to cellphones. Here’s his reasoning:
The way he describes the “information”, I think it would be similar to the CODE RED calls that I’ve signed up for from Delaware County to alert me to dangerous weather. I decided to give the CodeRed website my cell number all by myself without any intervention required by the government. I don’t “badly need” or want the government deciding that for me.
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore) said that “now most consumers have buckets of minutes so receiving an additional call costs them nothing“. Maybe HE has buckets of minutes because the Oregon taxpayers are probably paying HIS cell phone, but most people still have limited plans.
Don’t know about you, but I already get robo calls to my cell even though the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibits automated dialing to mobile phones. I currently have 20 such numbers programmed into my cell to block them because they’re spam calls made from bogus numbers, so the do-not-call system doesn’t work.
Walden says he has no intention of “unleashing telemarketers on us”. How many of you believe that if this bill passes, it will only be a matter of time until politicians are excluded and thus, allowed to make their obnoxious robo calls during political elections. If Reps Terry and Walden continue pushing this bill, then I want to know THEIR cell number!
I also wonder why anyone in DC is working on such a worthless bill when they should be working on ways to reduce the deficit, taxes and regulations to help small businesses so they can create jobs for people. Where are their priorities!
Stepping off my soapbox now …
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Posted in Central Ohio, Commentary, Media, Television, Transportation
Tagged House Energy & Commerce subcommittee, mainstream media, Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011, politicians robo calls, Rep Greg Walden, Rep Lee Terry